Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The science is now unequivocal: unchecked greenhouse gas emissions will lead to catastrophe. We face
vanishing polar ice caps, drought, rising sea levels, altered agriculture, massive deforestation, species
extinctions, virulent diseases, extreme weather events, and economic hardship. Faced with conclusive
evidence for years, successive Prime Ministers promised that they would act—but didn’t.
A new level of political commitment is needed to prevent the threat of worsening economic and health
effects of climate pollution.
Ensuring Accountability
C-311 requires the government to prepare and publish a plan for interim targets
for every 5 years starting in 2015, with the first target published within 6 months
of the Bill becoming law. It requires the government to make regulations in order
to meet those targets.
It mandates regular reviews and reports from an independent outside party
(the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy) on the
government’s selection of targets and the measures it adopts to reach those targets.
Achievable Targets
Here's how the logic behind the bill goes:
Temperature Limit: science indicates that we must avoid a 2 degree Celsius increase
(from pre-industrial levels) in the earth's temperature in order to avoid catastrophic
climate effects.
Concentration Objective: the science indicates that limiting global warming to no
more than 2 degrees requires stabilizing CO2e at 400 ppm. In order to check
temperature increases, we need to stabilize the concentration of CO2-equivalent in
the atmosphere (by 2004 we had reached a level of 377 ppm)
2050 GHG reduction target: 80% reduction by 2050 for Canada. Industrialized
countries must reduce emissions by 85-90% between 1990 and 2050 and Canada's
emissions are, on a per capita basis, among the highest in the world.
2020 GHG reduction target: 25% reduction by 2020. This target lies on a straight
line between Kyoto 2008-12 target (6% reduction) and 2050 target.